FCC Hoping to Toss Verizon's Data Roaming Challenge

Re: Possibly

"It is debateable if the FCC has overstepped it's mandates by forcing carriers into roaming agreements."

It is even more debatale whether the very existence of the FCC is constitutional. It's existence has been challenged on constitutional grounds before, and the Supreme Court ruled that the agency passes constitutional muster due to the alleged 'scarcity of the airwaves'.....but in these days of cable and satellite TV that offers hundreds of channels, and satellite radio that offers similar number of radio stations, not to mention Internet radio....that argument simply has no merit. The airwaves are anything but 'scarce' in the 21st century.

And you are quite right that the FCC's mandate has broadened, but the truly frightening thing about this is that its mandate has broadened because the FCC has simply seized the authority it claims to need, and Congress has simply stood by letting it happen and doing nothing about it.

In the last 3 years, the FCC has granted itself the power to regulate the Internet 3 times, and on two separate occassions it was told that it did not have the legal authority to claim this power, first by a federal court, and then by Congess. And each timne, the FCC has responded to the smackdown by simply turning around and claiming the authority yet again. Declaring, in essence, 'I want the power to regulate the Internet...therefore I have the power to regulate the Internet'

Let's face it, the FCC is getting out of control and is becoming a rogue agency. It is time to reign it in, if not abolish it altogether.